Rates of S. aureus Antibiotic Resistance Down in United States

THURSDAY, June 15, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Staphylococcus aureus infections among U.S. hospital patients have been less resistant to key antibiotics in recent years, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Microbe 2017, held from June 1 to 5 in New Orleans.

Between 2009 and 2015, researchers tested antibiotic resistance in 19,036 S. aureus samples from 42 medical centers nationwide. They found that rates of S. aureus resistance to the antibiotic oxacillin fell from 47.2 percent in 2009 to 43.6 percent in 2015 to 42.2 percent in 2016. S. aureus resistance to other antibiotics, such as levofloxacin, clindamycin, and erythromycin, also decreased. Resistance to ceftaroline, trimethoprim-sulfanethoxazole, and tetracycline was stable, the researchers said.

The investigators also found that the antibiotic ceftaroline remained very effective against methicillin-resistant S. aureus and methicillin-susceptible S. aureus during the study period. Furthermore, S. aureus resistance to daptomycin, linezolid, vancomycin, and tigecycline stayed extremely rare with no sign of increasing.

"Results showed that S. aureus' rates of resistance to certain antibiotics decreased over time, which isn't often seen," study coauthor Helio Sader, M.D., Ph.D., senior director of microbiology and surveillance at JMI Laboratories in North Liberty, Iowa, said in an American Society for Microbiology news release.

Data used in this investigation were generated as part of the AWARE Program, which is sponsored by Allergan.